


The Ballad of the Comet

by nerdsherpa



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Consent, M/M, Sex Education, and then lots of smooching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-22 22:47:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6096416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdsherpa/pseuds/nerdsherpa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn screws up his courage and asks Poe how sex works in the Resistance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ballad of the Comet

It'd been two months since Rey left, and five weeks since Finn was given a clean bill of health, and lately Poe had been thinking. The ex-Stormtrooper had been making a lot of Resistance friends — it's hard not to like a person after you've watched him realize that he can talk all he wants at meals because nobody's going to take his food away if he takes too long to eat it. And he'd been picking up duties around the base surprisingly fast, at the firing range, the tactical room and even in Medical.

So it wasn't that Poe didn't enjoy the fact that, despite all of that, Finn was sticking to him like a leather-clad shadow — the happy trill that was BB-8's way of pronouncing Finn's name in the greeting tense had become enough to make him smile on its own. But such "loyalty" did make a man wonder. And then there was the staring, and the stammering afterward. That was pretty familiar to Poe Dameron, Resistance pilot, as well.

But everything here was new to Finn, Poe reminded himself for the umpteenth time in weeks, when the younger man took a seat on the bench next to him at the edge of the cleared mess hall. Poe took the time to explain the significance of the fireworks and the lowered lamps inside, how even the generals were sitting down with the astromechs tonight. And as he did it he kept his hands to himself, and definitely didn't run his teeth over his lip or stare significantly. Jessika had started to make fun of him.

In fact, to no one's surprise, Pava was the first to stride to the bench at center of the room — to scattered cheers and applause — as Snap followed more sheepishly behind her, guitar in his hands. Poe realized he'd forgotten to explain why the music was important, and so he tuned out Jessika's little speech to tell Finn that each volunteer singer's first song of the evening was supposed to voice their hopes for the coming year.

Poe finished just in time to see Pava toss a wicked wink in his direction and launch into "The Jedi and His Saber," the fast-paced ditty about a Jedi master recalling all the objects and people he'd stuck his weapon into in the hopes of figuring out where he'd misplaced it. Howls of laughter filled the air, none louder than Poe's, who'd held it in, snorting softly, waiting for the moment that Finn's eyes widened with realization.

Poe watched his friend double over, eyes watering, during the verse about the queen's guard. Moon and stars, he was only sapient. Something had to be done about this.

When Jessika was finished, Finn leaned forward again to lend his own hands to the hearty applause, and Poe slipped his arm around him. Not over the shoulder, as he'd done often enough in the last month, but across his back and down, wrapping his hand around the younger man's waist when he leaned back.

"Oh, sor—" Finn sat up instinctively.

"It's fine," Poe tugged until their hips met, to dispel any notion that it might have been an accident — and because he wanted to. "This doesn't hurt your back, does it?"

'No. No, it's — yeah. It's fine."

"Pava," General Organa's voice rang clear and calm across the mess, though it was obvious she was fighting down a smile, "Something a little… slower, now, I think?"

"Yes, ma'am," Jessika answered, because what else could you say to someone who'd not only been at the Battle of Endor, but had been instrumental to it.

Snap plucked out a few familiar bars of "The Ballad of the Comet" and Jessika came in in her strong alto, only stumbling over the words once in the second verse. It hardly mattered, as most of the darkened mess was humming or singing along with her. Finn had crossed his arms tightly, but he still felt relaxed under Poe's. For a little while, anyway.

"Poe," he whispered. "Poe, I don't kn—"

Poe felt him tense.

"Sorry." Finn said it quietly and quickly, and fled.

Poe tried not to panic as he waited for Jessika to finish. In the cover of applause, he slipped out into the cool night air.

"Can I talk to you?"

He'd thought he might have had to go searching for him, but Finn was just outside the door. Fidgeting with the zipper on his jacket, he looked nervous, but in a way Poe sensed had little to do with him.

The pilot indicated the direction of the airfield with his head. "Want to go for a walk?"

Finn set a brisk pace, and Poe let him burn off the energy in silence. They were among the Resistance's fighters and ships before he broke it.

"I want to ask you something, but I don't know what it means here."

"OK."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure it definitely means something different here than it does for, for Stormtroopers."

After that, he fell silent again, giving time to Poe chew this over. "Well," he said eventually, "how would you say it if you were talking to a Stormtrooper?"

Poe watched as Finn put his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground, the stars, his shoes, the lights from the mess in the distance. His cheeks darkened, and he blurted out:

"Would you have sex with me?"

" _Oh_ ," Poe said.

It was good to know he hadn't been wrong about the staring and stammering. And this… this wasn't any more responsibility than he'd expected — than he'd hoped for, really — when he gave Finn his jacket...

Finn groaned, turning away, and Poe realized that his "oh" had been hanging in the air for longer than could be considered reassuring.

He grabbed the younger man's elbow, "Hey! It's fine. You just surprised me, it's fine. That's a very important phrase to —" Why was this runway so short on places to sit and talk? "— to know the, the meaning of, and we're going to work it out. Right now. OK?"

Finn sighed. "...OK." 

* * *

Finn let Poe pull him into the shadow of his X-Wing and then down so that they sat next to each other on the duracrete, backs against a large fuel crate. The best pilot in the Resistance ruffed his own hair and huffed a breath.

"Alright. Tell me—" He paused. "No. Tell me what sex mea— no, no. ...If somebody asked you —"

"We get taught about sex in training," Finn interrupted him, just to get it over with. He kept his eyes fixed on the underside of the ship's wing, but he could tell Poe was watching him, waiting for him to continue.

He decided to keep talking, because if he stopped now he might never speak again out of sheer embarrassment.

"How it makes babies but wouldn't for us because of a medicine in our food. How to do it without getting sick. All the ways you can do it, with hands or your mouth, or putting pr— penises in vaginas or, or anu—" Nope, he couldn't do it. "Buttholes. But a lot of them seem kind of complicated and my fire squad was all-male so we pretty much stuck with hands. Usually, your own hands. Well, Zero and Nines would use their mouths on each other sometimes. They never asked anybody else to have sex so I guess they were boyfriends — but I don't know what _that_ means here either."

If only the First Order would come up with a Finnkiller Base that could suck him up and fire him into another star system.

"Every now and then Slip and I would trade hands if he asked but he was barely any better than my own so I'd never really been very interested until _now_ , because all of a sudden I am _very interested_ , practically all the time, but I don't know what sex _means_ here and I'm pretty sure it means something different, which is why I am here, sitting under a T-70 X-Wing, explaining sex to the best pilot in the Resistance in the worst way possible."

Finn took a deep breath and looked at Poe, "I think I'm done."

"OK," Poe nodded. "Let me think." He chewed on his lip. "So, in the First Order, 'would you have sex with me' means… 'I would like to have sex. If _you_ would like to have sex, we could have sex with each other.'"

Finn shrugged. "Yeah. And then you'd take care of it at bunk time, or in the shower, probably, 'cause that's less mess. And sometimes people have… favorites that they go to, to take care of it."

"Well, the good news," Poe said, after a pause, "is that sometimes sex is like that out here in the rest of the galaxy. You're attracted to someone, you realize they're attracted to you — or you ask them — and you enjoy having sex with each other. Once, maybe a few times, or maybe as a regular thing."

"Attracted?"

Poe cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. "That's when, uh, when — when something about a given person makes you interested in having sex with _them_ , specifically."

Deep in Finn's head, a missing map locked into place, as if he'd just discovered a planet — no, two planets — where there'd only been unpredictable gravitational anomalies before.

" _Oh_ ," he said.

"But sex is also — well, it's a lot of different things all over the galaxy — but here, at least, in the Resistance, it's also… something you do with people you're very close to. If you're attracted to each other. It can be a way of expressing how much you care about them, and of growing even closer. That's what boyfriend or girlfriend means here, most of the time.

"And it's fun," he chuckled, tugging at his own hair, "it can make you feel good. It's fun to make someone you care about feel good in a way that makes you feel good too."

"It… _sounds_ fun." Finn allowed himself a small laugh, and Poe smiled at him in response. For some reason, it made his stomach lurch.

The pilot let his hands fall to the ground. "Look, Finn, the most important thing is that the people having it should agree about what the sex means. Sex is different all over the galaxy. Even in one place it can mean different things to different people. And even with one person it can change over time. The key is... you talk about what it means, just like we are right now.

"So, to answer your question, yes." Now Poe leaned back to stare at the belly of his X-Wing. "I would like to have sex with you."

"Poe."

The other man's eyes flicked down and towards him, and widened when he saw Finn's frown.

"I think… I don't just want the First Order version of sex. I think I want the Resistance version of sex." Finn stared hard at the duracrete between his ankles. Poe had said they'd need to agree. "I just wasn't sure what that meant until now."

He felt an arm slip slowly around his back, down to his waist, and tug until his hip was pressed against Poe's. "I think I want that too, buddy."

Suddenly, his heart was hammering so hard Poe must be able to hear it. The whole planet must be able to hear it. "Yeah?"

"Uh huh."

"You did this arm thing earlier. Does it mean… the Resistance version of 'would you have sex with me?'"

"Uh huh."

Two arms had always seemed like a reasonable number to coordinate, but all of a sudden Finn was having a lot of trouble figuring out where to put his. "Here," Poe took the hand that was between them and put it on his own knee, "That OK?"

Finn nodded. It _was_ OK. Poe's knee was warm, his arm constricting — but in a good way, somehow. Also, he'd become relatively certain he was not having a heart attack at this point.  "So what's, uh, what's next?"

Poe looked at him in a very serious manner. "Definitely kissing."

"I've… never done that before."

* * *

Poe Dameron blinked several times. "Never — you've had — but you've never —"

Finn's shoulders hunched. "I've never wanted to before. Sex wasn't for… all of the things it is here. We weren't supposed to care. Sex is — was just, like, like rations. Like cleaning armor. You get it done."

"You've never wanted to before."

"Yeah."

"...but you do _now_."

Finn peered at him defensively. " _Yeah_."

Poe couldn't have hid his smile if he'd wanted to. "Then come here."

Finn let him guide their faces together with his hand, and then Poe leaned forward and closed the last few inches himself. Finn froze when their lips met, but he had expected as much, so he just… kept kissing him. Small, nearly dry movements that Finn could mimic — and he did, as quickly and easily as he'd learned everything else on the base. Poe guided by example, opening both their mouths, choking back a noise in his throat as Finn tentatively took his lower lip between both of his, pulling gently but eagerly. Forget Jessika and her teasing. Stars above, this was worth the wait.

When Poe grazed Finn's tongue with his own he jumped like someone had zapped him.

"I see what you mean," he breathed, "about fun."

"Stealing a TIE-fighter is fun," Poe answered, his mouth against Finn's cheek and trending down his jawline, "this is exhilarating."

Finn shivered when Poe's lips met his earlobe, gasped when he slid his tongue up the curve of it, and when Poe exhaled slowly he felt fingers dig into his thigh. Finn was breathing hard when he pulled away.

"I _like_ that."

"I can tell."

Finn followed his gaze to the front of his pants. "Oh blast me to—"

"Hey, it's OK!" Poe laughed. "I mean, it's a stop on the way to the goal, right?" Struck by a sudden thought, he stopped laughing and sat up straight. "Or it can just _be_ the goal. Finn, I don't want to —" He paused, making sure he had the other man's full attention. "Sex shouldn't mean anything you don't want it to. You know what I—?"

"Yeah," Finn took his hand off of Poe's leg and knit their fingers together. "Yeah, no, I want — I want to make you feel good. In a way that makes me feel good."

Despite himself, Poe's stomach did a flip that turned into an all-body shiver, and he squeezed Finn's fingers with his own.

"Well, that probably means we should go back to my room," he said, getting to his feet. "In this part of the galaxy it's considered polite to have sex privately."

"We shouldn't... stop and go back to the party?" Finn asked, peering back at the mess hall, though it was clear from his voice that stopping was not high on his list of priorities.

"Honestly?" Poe helped him up. "I can't think of a better way to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Endor."

"Yeah." Carefully, but insistent, Finn pulled their faces together, and Poe groaned as the other man's tongue brushed against his. "Yeah. Me either."


End file.
